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ULYSSES HOMER; 



A DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE AUTHOR 



ILIAD AND ODYSSEY. 



CONSTANTINE KOLIADES, 

PROFESSOR IN THE IONIAN UNIVERSITY. 

MT0ON A', H2 O, T AOIA02, EIIISTAMENnS KATEAEEA2, 
nANTON T' APrEIHN, 2EO T' ATTOT, KHAEA ATrPA. 



LONDON: 

o 
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 

MDCCCXXIX. 



.& 



?<** 



LONDON: 

NTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHlTJiFKlARS. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The translator thinks it necessary to state that 
the following disquisition is meant but to serve as 
the introduction to a larger work, in which the 
same opinion is developed and supported, by the 
same ingenious author, much more in the detail. 
Indeed it is often by observations upon points 
apparently minute, and by the detection of coin- 
cidences seemingly trivial, that the most important 
truths are most firmly established. r J his larger 
work is actually finished, and the plans and views 
necessary for the illustration of the subject are 
already engraved. But the opinion therein broached 
respecting the real author of the Homeric poems 
being entirely new, it has been thought prudent to 
send forth the present little work into the world 
first, in order to try the sentiments of the learned 
on so interesting a subject. 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

It is proper to add, that the writer is not to be 
considered as one who, like father Hardouin, puts 
forth a fanciful paradox from the love of singularity, 
or in order to show his address. He firmly believes 
in the opinion which he promulgates; and his belief 
has not been formed in the retirement of the closet 
only, or from the study of the works of learned 
men, but from adventurous voyages and travels 
through the regions to which his inquiries relate. 

'London, November 19/A, 1828. 



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TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE 

THE EARL OF GUILFORD, 

ETC., ETC., ETC., 

FOUNDER OF THE IONIAN UNIVERSITY. 
MY LORD, 

Having visited all the countries 
sung by Homer, you are at present 
engaged in diffusing the invaluable 
benefits of education over Greece ; 
and, after the example of the heroes 
Podalirius and Machaon, you pour 



VI DEDICATION, 

a healing and soothing balm into her 
wounds. 

It is to you, therefore, my Lord, that 
the respectful homage of my conjec- 
tures on the real author of the Iliad 
and Odyssey is due. If you honor 
them with your approbation, all the 
friends of the arts, who witness your 
generous sacrifices for Greece, will imi- 
tate your indulgence towards my labors, 
and, in concert with yourself, will per- 
haps assist me in lifting up a corner of 
the veil which for so many ages has 
withdrawn from the admiration of 
mankind the most sublime of poets, 



DEDICATION. Vll 

the most skilful warrior, and the most 
accomplished shepherd of his people 
that has appeared on earth since the 
time of Moses. 

I am, 

My Lord, 

With great respect, 
Your Lordship's humble and obedient servant, 
CONSTANTINE KOLIADES, 

INHABITANT OF ITHACA, ANI» 
PROFESSOR IN THE IONIAN UNIVERSITY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



A king, says Pope, obedient to the call 
of honor, quits his states on a long and peril- 
ous expedition, which is to decide the fate of 
Europe and of Asia. The two chiefs of this 
great enterprise, Agamemnon and Menelaus, 
attach so much value to the talents and alli- 
ance of this king that they repair in person to 
his capital to solicit the aid of his prudence 
and valor. During the continuance of a 
bloody war they summon this king to all 
their councils ; they charge him with their 
embassies the most difficult : he it is who di- 
rects all their military operations ; who shows 
himself throughout an equally great orator 
and intrepid warrior ; who captivates and 



X INTRODUCTION*. 

carries with him the chiefs and the soldiers 
by the force of his eloquence ; who exhibits 
to all the army an example of conjugal and 
paternal tenderness, and of constant piety 
towards the gods. 

This same king, after having assembled 
all the heroes of Greece, to lead them against 
the enemy; after having covered himself with 
glory in the war, of which he was the life and 
soul, embarks to return to his kingdom, and 
to carry with him his companions in arms ; 
but tempests drive them from their course, 
and cast them among different nations, of 
which he studies the forms of government 
and the manners. His companions neglect 
the sage counsels which he gives them : they 
land upon a desert island, from which they 
seem likely never to escape. In the mean 
time anarchy desolates his states ; numerous 
usurpers consume his goods, plot the death of 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

his son, and endeavour to force his wife to 
contract a new marriage. 

The return of this valiant and courageous 
king appears impossible; and, could he return 
to his native country, all then appears lost to 
him. However, by means the most surprising, 
he does return, clothed in a disguise which 
conceals him from the curiosity of his ene- 
mies and the knowledge of his most faithful 
subjects, of his own son, and even of his wife 
herself. In the resources of his genius, in 
the courage of his son, in the incorruptible 
fidelity of his ancient servants, he finds means 
to triumph over his enemies, and to bring 
back for a short time tranquillity and peace 
into his states. 

Who then is this king who unites such 
talents and such virtues ? Must it not have 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

been that same personage, unknown for so 
many ages, who lias displayed in his immortal 
poems the sublime lessons of morality, of po- 
licy, and of war ; who so perfectly knew the 
towns, the mountains, the rivers, the pro- 
ductions, and the history of Greece ; who 
seems to have lived in intimacy with all the 
princes who reigned there in his time, and to 
have known those who preceded him ? Must 
it not have been the sublime genius who 
drew in the Iliad the picture of the war in 
which he had fought, and in the Odyssey the 
interesting journal of his own adventures 
after the war, and of his return to his coun- 
try ? In fact, if it be observed that this great 
king lived at a period when poet-kings, such 
as Moses, David, and Solomon, were seated 
upon the thrones of the east, composed 
divine poems, and drew up also in verse 
the enumeration of the people under them ; 



INTRODUCTION. XUI 

if it be true, as Philostratus asserts, and 
as all antiquity has agreed to believe, that 
Palamedes, the son of the king of Euboea, 
had also made a poem upon the war of Troy, 
we should perhaps feel less surprise if Ulysses, 
the son of the king of Ithaca, were the real 
author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. 

Upon that supposition every thing explains 
itself naturally and without effort. The name 
and the country of this author are no longer 
problematic. We have no longer to ask our- 
selves where he was born ; what were the 
events of his life ; whether he were a soldier, 
a priest, a king, or a schoolmaster. No : he 
was born at Ithaca ; he fought at Troy ; he 
navigated the seas of Greece, of Sicily, of 
Italy, and perhaps even so far as the Atlantic 
ocean. He is the author of the enumeration 
of all the nations known in his time : he is 



XIV [INTRODUCTION. 

the author of that magnificent monument of 
history and geography, of that eternal and 
sacred code of which all the nations of Greece 
invoke the authority, in order to fix the hounds 
of their several territories. If his name does 
not appear at the head of the Iliad, it is at 
least written in characters of gold at the head 
and in every line of the Odyssey. 

Poet and soldier, like Moses, David, Solo- 
mon, Palamedes, Ossian, Camoens, he was 
upon the field of battle witnessing the ex- 
ploits of his countrymen, and he determined 
to sing them, along with his own personal 
adventures, in order that poesy might draw 
from thence lessons useful to posterity: 

.... "iva t)(ri Kid k(j(jofiEvoi(nv aoic'). 

As it is easy to perceive that a system so 
extraordinary as that which it has been sought 
to establish in the course of this dissertation 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

will experience numerous objections, and cri- 
ticisms apparently well founded, it is proper 
to resolve beforehand the chief, I will venture 
to say the only, difficulties which can be op- 
posed to it. 

Let us begin with that beautiful invocation 
to the Muses with which the poet seems him- 
self to fix, in a manner the most precise, the 
period at which he lived to times subsequent 
to the war of Troy. I have shown in this 
dissertation the manner in which the learned 
Mitford has interpreted this passage, and how 
his interpretation is favorable to my system ; * 
but Eustathius, and after him Madame Da- 
cier, have discovered the true sense of this 
invocation, by which the poet only tries to 
gain the confidence of his readers, without 
having the least idea of fixing the era at 
* P. 15. 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

which he lived. " Behold," says Madame 
Dacier, " a noble address for the purpose of 
giving to a fable the air of truth. Men know- 
nothing certain ; they only receive confused 
accounts ; and, consequently, if the Muses 
speak, they will say nothing but the truth. 
As for ourselves, we hear only confused ac- 
counts of the war of Troy ; but the Muses 
knew all things exactly, and they only can 
tell us what really took place. Homer here 
wishes to gain the confidence of his reader by 
making him believe that he is not the author 
of a fable, and that he speaks only the truth. 
He may also wish to have it inferred," con- 
tinues Madame Dacier, " that, this history of 
Ulysses being true, it was impossible that it 
should be buried in oblivion, or that it should 
not be known by an infinity of persons. Many 
people have already heard mention of it. 
Deign, therefore, divine Muses, to teach it to 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

the Greeks also, as you have already taught 
it to other nations." 

A second difficulty, and nearly of the same 
kind, which will not fail to be objected to our 
system of antiquity, is that immense stone 
thrown by Diomed ; so heavy that two men 
of Homer's time could not have lifted it. It 
will without doubt be inquired how Ulysses, 
belonging to the time of the Trojan war, 
could have said, if he had been the author of 
the poem, that the stone was so large that 
two men, such as they were in his time, could 
not have lifted it. The poet must without 
doubt, therefore, have lived after the Trojan 
war to have made that observation. Yes, 
without doubt, after the Trojan war ; but it 
is not necessary that he should have lived at 
a period greatly distant from that war: it 
will suffice that he should have put the last 



XV111 INTRODUCTION. 

hand to his poem at an advanced age, and 
that he should thus have wished to draw a 
comparison between the men, such as they 
were in the war at the time of his youth, and 
such as he saw them at the close of his life. 
This will be altogether conformable to the 
character of the old man, — 

.... laudator temporis acti. 

In the third place, if it be supposed that 
Ulysses was the author of the poems on the 
war of Troy, how can we explain the constant 
praises which he bestows on himself from one 
end of the poem to the other ? If the praise 
of our rivals be painful to us in the mouth 
of another, what must it be to hear any one 
praise himself? It is in general the most 
insupportable vanity ; and nothing is more 
offensive than to see a man anticipate the 
favorable suffrages of others, and as it were 



INTRODUCTION. \1\ 

crown himself with his own hands. Let us 
see whether we can apply these reproaches to 
Ulysses on the supposition that he was the 
author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Has 
he not in the first place rendered justice to 
the bravery and other good qualities of his 
companions in arms? Has he affected to 
show himself superior to them with ostenta- 
tion or with a view to humiliate them ? Was 
it not allowable to show by his own example 
that it was right to be a pious man, a faithful 
husband, and a tender father ? Did not David, 
born like him of a chosen race, a great king, 
a great captain , think himself worthy to sing 
the divine omnipotence, and to call himself 
the man after God's own heart ? Should one 
after this blame Ulysses for having boasted 
of his own prudence, his address, and his 
courage ; above all, when one perceives him 
make in the same terms the religious acknow- 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

ledgment that Minerva, or the Divine Wis- 
dom, never abandoned him ? 

In order to add a last stroke to the justi- 
fication of the Homeric hero, and to free him 
completely from all imputation of vanity, on 
the supposition that he is the author of the 
poems on the war of Troy, let us open the 
sage Plutarch, who will teach us when and 
how a man may utter his own praises without 
exposing himself to envy. His expressions 
on this subject will appear so much the more 
remarkable as Ulysses himself is the subject 
of them. " Ulysses," says Plutarch, " seeing 
his men afraid at the dreadful noise proceed- 
ing from the gulf of Charybdis, recals to their 
memory the subtlety of his genius and his 
valor, by thus addressing them : * O my 
friends, we are not without experience of 
dangers : this is not a greater evil than when 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 

the Cyclops shut us up in his dark cave by 
powerful might; but even from thence we 
escaped by my valor, counsel, and wisdom ; 
and I trust that you will remember these 
things. Now therefore come, let all obey 
the orders which I shall give.'"* 

This manner of praising oneself, according 
to Plutarch, " is not that of a flattering ad- 
vocate, nor of a boasting sophist, nor of one 
who demands applauses, but of a person who 
pledges to his friends, as the ground of as- 
surance in himself, his acknowledged valor 
and sufficiency; for it is not a matter of 
small importance towards ensuring safety in 
times of danger, to have confidence derived 
from reputation in the man who has the 
chief command." t Who knows, besides, 

* Od. M. 208. 

t Plut. wept tov eavTov kiraivtiv ayeTTKpdopwg, T. III. 
p. 139. ed. Oxon. 1797- 



XX11 INTRODUCTION. 

whether he has not skilfully concealed his 
name in order to obtain the right of ren- 
dering himself the justice which he knew 
he merited? 

Lastly, it may be said, and this objection 
has greater force than all the others, if 
Ulysses be the author of the poems on the 
war of Troy, how can it be supposed that 
he would accuse himself of cowardice, and 
of having fled at the moment when he was 
called upon to succour his best friend? The 
answer is easy. The father of gods and 
men thunders from the top of mount Ida: 
the Greeks seeing the heavens on fire, and 
Jupiter armed with his lightning and bolts, 
are seized with fear and fly. Neither 
Agamemnon nor Idomeneus, nor the two 
Ajaxes, the favorites of Mars, dare to stand 
their ground. The life of Nestor is in 



INTRODUCTION. XX111 

danger. Diomed conjures Ulysses to come 
to the succour of his friend : but his object 
is then to rally the Greeks, and to prevent 
the Trojans from penetrating into the en- 
trenchments. The fleet was threatened, and 
the voice of his country spoke louder to the 
heart of Ulysses than that of friendship. 



ULYSSES IIOMEK. 



It is known that in the time of Plutarch 
there were stili in the island of Ithaca two 
families which were descended from the two 
superintendents of the flocks of Ulysses : one 
bore the name of Koliades, and was a de- 
scendant of Eumaeus ; the other was called 
Boukolos, and was of the race of Phyletius. "*" i 

My father, Spiridion Koliades, was of opi- 
nion that the Boukoloi had been extinct for 
a long time ; and, in truth, their name was 
unknown in the island ; but he asserted that 
that of the Koliadae had come down to him 
without interruption, and that consequently 
he was descended in a right line by Eumaeus 
from the kings of Scyros : and, after all, what 
would there have been extraordinary that we 

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2 ULYSSES I ID Mlli. 

should still at the present time find in Ithaca 
descendants of the kings of Scyros, when we 
see at Venice descendants of Justinian and of 
Galba, and in the Phanar of Constantinople 
Comneni, Cantacuzenes, Palaeologi, and other 
descendants of the sovereigns of the lower 
empire ? 

Having lost my mother at the age of ten 
years, I became an object of affection to my 
father, so much the more tender as I was the 
only branch of the family of the Koliadse. 
In order therefore to give himself up entirely 
to my education, he solicited of the Venetian 
government the retirement which he had well 
deserved by thirty years of good and loyal 
service in the galleys and other vessels of the 
republic. With a pension of fifteen sequins 
a month, and the moderate revenue of some 
acres of vineyards and oliveyards, which he 
possessed in the hamlet of Leuca, upon the 
western bank of the island, he hoped to find 
a means of supporting me for some years in 
one of the universities of Italy ; but, before 
sending me thither, he wished to teach me 



ULYSSES HOMEtti .'3 

himself the elements of Greek literature. The 
first book that he put into my hands was the 
Odyssey, which he called the divine history 
of his ancient king. At every verse which 
we read together he did not fail to make me 
remark the relation that subsisted between 
the ancient language of our forefathers and 
the patois which is at this time spoken in our 
islands. 



When he judged me sufficiently instructed 
to comprehend the twenty- four books of the 
Odyssey, he undertook to make me study all 
the sites, and all the monuments of our island, 
which recalled the remembrance of Ulysses, 
and which prove not only his presence, but 
his long abode in Ithaca. We began this in- 
teresting excursion with the summits of mount 
Neritos ; from whence we could perceive, at 
a bird's-eye view, our dear country throughout 
the extent of its territory. 

" This island," says he, " which we now 
have under our view, is twenty-four miles in 
length, from north to south, and about four 

b 2 



•4 ULYSSES HOMER. 

miles at the place of its greatest breadth. Its 
population amounts to about ten thousand 
inhabitants. It counts eight harbours, of dif- 
ferent sizes; of which the chief preserves still 
in our days the name of Vathi, the name 
given it by Homer in the Odyssey. 

" Behold the two promontories which, 
bending towards each other, form the en- 
trance and repel the waves. The vessels to 
be seen within are there sheltered from the 
winds, and there remain stationary without 
being held by any hawser." 

A celebrated English traveller, Edward 
Dodwell, was so struck at the picture of this 
port, which is to be found in the twelfth book 
of the Odyssey, and every trait, as he said, 
appeared of an exactitude so perfect, that he 
thought himself bound to copy it line by line 
into his Travels in Greece : 

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ULYSSES HOMER. 5 

"EktoQev evroirdev Se uvev Secr/xolo fiivovai 
Nijetj evcrcreX/wi, otuv opfxov jxirpoy Ikuvtou. 

Od. N. 96. 

The same traveller, after having traversed 
the island of Ithaca in every direction, and 
having taken views of all the sites and all the 
monuments in it, observes, in the same work, 
that Homer dwelt with so much pleasure 
upon the island of Ithaca and its hero that 
some authors have supposed that he was him- 
self of Ithaca. 

From the summit of Neritos we descended 
together to the Grotto of the Nymphs, the 
ruins of which are still to be seen, and in 
which the bees still make their abode in pre- 
ference to any other place, as the doves in the 
rocks of Thisbe, and the owls in the acropolis 
of Athens. From the Grotto of the Nymphs 
he conducted me by a rugged path to the rocks 
of the Crow,* where he pointed out to me the 



* Tlap Ko'pa/voc Trirpt], etti ry tcpyvq 'ApeBovat]. Od. 
N. 408. 



ULYSSES HOMER. 

situation of the cottage of Eumaeus, and near 
that cottage the cavern where the faithful 
servant of Ulysses passed the night to keep 
watch and guard over the flocks of his master. 
He made me remark at the same time the 
fountain of Arethusa, beyond the port where 
Telemachus landed on his return from Pylos. 

From thence he brought me back to the 
Cyclopian ruins of the capital and of the 
palace of Ulysses, where he made me study 
the details of the combat and of the victory 
of the hero over the infamous pretenders to 
his crown and to the chaste Penelope, making 
me at the same time admire the most extra- 
ordinary monuments of antiquity, certain me- 
dals of Ulysses discovered in the very ruins 
of his palace. 

We went from thence in search of the foun- 
tain of Mercury, and of the farm of Laertes. 
At the village of Leuca he pointed out to me 
the isle of Asteris, as the spot the most happily 
chosen by the suitors in which to place their 



ULYSSES HOMER. 7 

ambuscade against Telemachus. Even to the 
ruins of the School of Homer he made me 
pay attention, in order, as he said, to prove 
to me that the island of Ithaca had a rig-lit 
to put in its claims to be the birthplace of 
Homer, as well as the other seven towns of 
Greece. 



At length, by means of hearing him com- 
pare the scenes of the Odyssey with the places 
which had evidently been the theatre of them, 
and which I had continually under my eyes, 
I began to participate in all the enthusiasm 
of my father, and was as thoroughly convinced 
as himself, that such a personage as Ulysses 
had certainly existed, that he had been king 
of Ithaca, and that that island had been the 
theatre of the most interesting scenes of the 
Odyssey. 

My father, enchanted with the manner in 
which I had seized his shrewd perceptions, 
and the deep impression which they had at 
the same time made upon my mind and 



8 ULYSSES HOMER. 

heart, thought it right that I should then 
conclude my elementary studies in the island 
of Ithaca, and depart for the university of 
Padua, where he had studied himself, before 
entering into the naval service of the Vene- 
tians. When on the point of my departure, he 
conducted me to the Cyclopian ruins of mount 
Aito, in order there to take his leave of me 
and to communicate to me his last wishes, * 
and to impart to me an important secret, 
which, as he said, he had never intrusted to 
any one. 

The sun, just rising, gilded with his first 
rays the summit of mount Neritos, and the 
gigantic ruins with which we were surrounded. 
The cytisus, the terebinthus, the lentisc, and 
a thousand other aromatic plants, perfumed 
the air with their delicious odors. f "Go," 

* They were in truth his last; for, on my return 
from my travels, he had sunk into the grave. 

t Those who sail in these happy climates breathe the 
balsamic air of the plants at a considerable distance from 
the shores. 



ULYSSES HOMER. 9 

said he to me, " my dear son, and remember 
that it is on mount Neritos, near those beau- 
teous ruins, that I have put into thy hands for 
the first time the poem of the Odyssey, at- 
tributed, as well as that of the Iliad, to a 
genius surely supernatural and divine ; since 
his name, his country, and the era in which 
he lived have remained mysteries through so 
many ages that have been enchanted by his 
verses." 

The most ancient of the Greek historians 
believed that this great poet had existed four 
hundred years before him. Thucydides, Plato, 
Aristotle, Strabo, and Plutarch, who, at dif- 
ferent periods, have examined with care the 
antiquities of their country, do not dissemble 
the uncertainty of the authorities and monu- 
ments which they have consulted upon this 
important subject. Pausanias avers frankly, 
that he knows nothing of Homer. " I have 
spared no pains," he says, " in my endeavours 
to discover at what time Homer and Hesiod 
have lived ; but as I know that many writers 



10 ULYSSES HOMER. 

have treated this question with much warmth, 
and particularly those who in our own time 
have applied themselves to poetry, I refrain 
from publishing my own ojnnion, in order 
that I may not become a party in the dis- 
pute." Cicero assures us, that in his time 
the age and country of Homer were alike 
completely unknown. " The inhabitants of 
Salamis and of Chios," says he, " claim this 
great poet : those of Smyrna maintain that 
he belongs to them : the Cephalonians pre- 
tend that he is their fellow citizen."* " The 
most moderate computations," adds the Ro- 
man orator, in another part, " place Homer, 
at least, thirty years before Lycurgus ; from 
whence we may conclude, that he was a long 
time before Romulus." " It is without doubt 
useless," says Plutarch, " to search either for 
the family or for the country of Homer, since 

* This passage of Cicero will explain the monument 
known in our days, in the island of Ithaca, by the name 
of the School of Homer. The Cephalonians had a right 
to claim Ulysses as their countryman, and even as their 
sovereign. 



ULYSSES HOMER. 11 

he has not deigned himself to speak of either ; 
and has carried his caution so far as not to 
choose to give us even his true name." 

But, in the midst of this painful darkness 
and obscurity, it is of great importance to re- 
mark, that a Roman emperor, as illustrious 
by his power as by his taste for the arts, 
learnt from the mouth of the oracle of Delphi, 
that Homer was born in the island of Ithaca, 
and that he was the son of Telemachus and 
of the fair Polycasta, the daughter of Nestor. 

It is to be presumed, that the oracle of 
Delphi did not say the whole truth to the 
emperor. It at least revealed to him the 
opinion consigned to the mysterious treasures 
of its temple, which, as we know, was at no 
great distance from Ithaca. Another tra- 
dition, which comes from the banks of the 
Nile, informs us that the name of Homer has 
reference to a wound which that great poet 
had received on his thigh, b-^poq. Might it 
not be that wound which he received from 
the wild boar of Parnassus, and which oc- 



12 ULYSSES HOMER. 

casioned his being recognized by his nurse 
Euryclea ? 

It may be farther observed by the way, that, 
according to Philostratus, Homer made the 
voyage of Ithaca in order to consult there the 
manes of Ulysses, upon the details of which 
he had need for the composition of his poems. 

If these different observations do not seem 
at first view to throw a great access of light 
upon the real author of the poems of the war 
of Troy, they prove, at least, that the Delphic 
oracle, the first of its kind in Greece, regarded 
the island of Ithaca as the cradle of Homer ; 
and that he who directed that great poet to 
the manes of Ulysses, in order to learn from 
him the events of the war of Troy, felt the 
necessity of consulting that hero in order to 
paint them faithfully. 

Forasmuch as the ancients teach us no- 
thing positive respecting the age and country 
of Homer, let us see if we can hope for more 
information from the moderns. If we run 



ULYSSES HOMER. 13 

through the most famous schools of Europe, 
we shall there find the same disputes, the 
same uncertainty, and the same darkness. 
Let us consult in England the Popes, the 
Woods, the Knights, &c. ; in Germany, the 
Heynes, the Stolbergs, &c. ; in Italy, the 
MafTeis, the Martorellis, the Salvinis, the 
Cesarottis, &c. ; in Spain, the Gravinas, the 
Garofalos, the Varyas, &c. ; in Holland, the 
Wisels, the Sgravenaers, &c. ; in Austria, the 
Hamers ; in France, the Barthelemis, the 
Daciers, the Rocheforts, the Larchers, &c. ; 
throughout we shall find the most complete 
uncertainty with respect to the person and 
age of Homer. One single English historian 
has had the courage to fix an epoch for the 
existence of this sublime genius : I say that 
he has had the courage, because real courage 
is necessary to attack a system, whatever it 
may be, when it has been accredited by so 
many ages. In the first book of the Odyssey, 
the prudent Telemachus says to his mother, 
" Why do you forbid Phoonix to sing the sub- 
ject which he has chosen, and which pleases 
him the most ? You should not chide him 



14 ULYSSES HOMLR. 



for singing the misfortunes of the Greeks : 
the taste of all men is to love best the songs 
which are the newest." " Now this," says 
Mitford, " would stand contradicted by the 
poet's practice, if the events which he cele- 
brates happened, as some have imagined, five, 
four, three, two, or even one century before 
the generation for which he composed ex- 
isted.'*|^ol. i. p. 230. In the eighth book, 
Ulysses says to Demodocus : " Divine songster, 
you paint the misfortunes of the Greeks, all 
that they have done and suffered, and all the 
labors they have undergone, as if you had 
been present, or as if you had learned them 
from themselves." Afterward, Alcinous says 
to Ulysses : " Tell us, why you weep, on 
hearing sung the misfortunes of the Greeks, 
and those of Troy? Those misfortunes 
spring from the gods, who have ordained the 
death of so many men in order that poetry 
may derive from thence songs useful to those 
who shall come after them." Pope has re- 
marked, that Homer's invocation, 'HyueTe U 

kXeoq olov aKOvofiev, ovcie ti 'id/Jiev, shoWS that he 

lived long after the siege of Troy. " Thu- 



mw&ftfr 






ULYSSES IIOMEIC. 15 

cydides," Mitford adds, " for such matters 
incomparably a greater authority than Pope, 
has said nearly the same thing ; but the 
question still remains, ' What is long ?' Per- 
haps the ovdi n 'ilfXEv might be not unreason- 
ably taken to imply that the poet's birth was 
so near the time of the Trojan war that, in 
his old age, if he had not declared the con- 
trary, it might have been imagined, that he 
pretended to know the events he describes 
from having been a party concerned ; for it is 
little usual to contradict what could not be 
supposed." *Vol. i. p. 234. 

It should appear, according to this para- 
graph, that Mitford himself is of opinion, that 
the author of the Iliad and Odyssey had lived 
sufficiently near the time of the events which 
he describes to create a belief that he had per- 
sonally taken part in them. Whatever may 
be the case with respect to the judgment of 
the ancients and moderns on the author of 
the Odyssey, it is at all events certain, as has 
been well remarked by a celebrated English 

P h+ay U\Uf fxrev^ fa** L<- &£ ^ £"*- • 

i^ti^L lu. Ma. £*wv tyj- ul^itJ^ LU Ata-t^^ #*-**-•. c*. - 



16 ULYSSES HOMER. 

traveller,* that the Ithaca of Homer is some- 
thing more than a creation of his own ima- 
gination, as some authors have supposed ; 
inasmuch as the most minute circumstances 
which he has recited coincide perfectly with 
the topography of that* island; and that it 
would be a task evidently impossible, to adapt 
so great a number of details and incidents to 
a falsehood so long and so laboriously worked 
up. " This reflection of the English traveller, 
as thou seest," says my father, " is word for 
word the same which thou madest to me, in 
all the simplicity of thy tender age, when I 
took thee to the height of Aito to make thee 
study the ruins, and when we read together 
the combat of Ulysses with the suitors in the 
twenty-second book of the Odyssey. ' The 
poet,' thou saidst, ' must have well known the 
palace of Ulysses, in order to mark out to us 
the manner in which it was distributed with 
so much particularity, and to point out to us 
at the bottom of the hall of combat that port 



f * Sir William Gell. - 

' L^> a^oLTTy? t Cl Lc~ r ^*L K<rt~ u't/c •<? h,cm- > 

1 oUuJrlZjL *A Lii LA^&J u sxjfz Lc^^L u^rP l"-^*- 
' r /Q^ZZlZlhu^. " VU.T. //>• 2iO. 23/. 



ULYSSES HOMER. 17 

of retreat through which the suitors might 
call for assistance.' Mad. Dacier had made 
this remark long before thee. ' Ulysses,' 
says she, ' who knew all the parts of his pa- 
lace, took the wise precaution of setting Eu- 
maeus to guard that port, as it was the only 
one by which they could descend into the 
court.' * 

In general, the surprising agreement which 
exists between the numerous incidents of the 
combat and the localities of the palace proves 
that the person who described the combat 
must have been the principal actor in it ; and 
this argument would be sufficient alone, with- 
out any other, in the mind of every sensible 
man, to prove the incontestable identity of the 
poet and the hero. 

But there remain still other means of esta- 
blishing this identity. It is known that the 
king of Ithaca was a member of the con- 
federation of Greece, and that he had contri- 
buted more than any other to the taking of 
Troy. His adventures after the war, as he 

c 



18 ULYSSES HOMER. 

recounts them himself in the Odyssey, have 
all the characters of a history ; and Strabo, a 
writer of the Augustan age, has said, that 
those who would refuse their belief to the 
adventures of Ulysses, when pruned of their 
mythological ornaments ; those who denied 
the return of Ulysses to his palace, and his 
punishment of the usurpers of his throne, 
calumniated the poet, and no more deserved 
to be refuted, than those who gave credit to 
the hospitality of goddesses, to metamorphoses, 
to the great size of the Cyclops and the Lae- 
strygons, to the monstrosity of Scylla, and 
the oxen of the sun. 

Now, if the adventures of Ulysses are true, 
who could have recounted them ? One of the 
companions of Ulysses? but they all perished 
in the shipwreck, the victims of their impiety. 
A Phaeacian, who had beard the hero himself 
give the recital of them? but we are in- 
formed in the recital itself that the Phaeacians 
dwelt far from civilized people : licdg /jtepoTrwv 
urQpw™v. and certainly no one can attribute 
the Odyssey to a poet of uncultivated genius. 



ULYSSES HOMER- 19 

But might not Ulysses have recounted his 
adventures during his abode at Ithaca ? Yes, 
no doubt he would recount them to Penelope 
and Telemachus — but very rapidly; for his 
journey to the country abode of Laertes, his 
combat against the suitors, his victory, and 
the banishment into Italy which followed it, 
would not allow him time to make a long re- 
cital. Lastly, it should be remarked that, if 
the Odyssey was the work of any other poet 
than Ulysses, that poet would without doubt 
have given us the death of his hero in the 
poem. If it was the king of Ithaca who was 
the same person as the author, it is not to 
be wondered that he has said nothing of his 
own death. 

Ulysses is, therefore, most assuredly the 
author of the Odyssey ; and as in the opinion 
of all men of taste, ancient as well as modern,* 
the Odyssey and Iliad are by the same hand, 
it is to the king of Ithaca that we are obliged 
for two poems the most magnificent that have 
ever come from the hand of man. 

c: % 



20 ULYSSES HOMER* 

" But although this reasoning, and the con- 
sequences which I have deduced from it," said 
my father, " may appear to thy eyes and to mine 
to have the character of a rigorous demonstra- 
tion, I feel the imperious necessity of having 
assistance so extraordinary and so new con- 
firmed by some one else besides myself. Thou 
art he then, my son, whom I declare the heir 
and the defender of my discovery, on condition 
that thou wilt spare no effort, no fatigue, no 
sacrifice, in order to confirm and render it 
perfect. Thou art now going first to pass 
some years at the university. When thou 
shalt have then acquired the knowledge ne- 
cessary to render thy travels advantageous, and 
which it was impossible for me to procure for 
thee in Ithaca, thou shalt repair by Constan- 
tinople to the Sigean promontory, in order to 
study there the theatre of the Iliad with the 
same zeal and the same care with which thou 
hast here studied with thy father that of the 
Odyssey. Without doubt, all the echoes of 
the plain of Ilium will repeat to thee the ac- 
tions of our king, when thou shalt have verified 



ULYSSES HOMES. 21 

the presence of the hero in battles, and the 
coincidence of the topography of the plain 
with the poem of the Iliad, as thou hast al- 
ready verified that of our island with the poem 
of the Odyssey. Thou shalt follow the hero 
in the regions of the Greek and Trojan con- 
federation, in the islands of the ZEgean sea, 
and in the sea of Sicily. Thou wilt return 
to the embraces of thy father loaded with 
the fruits of thy travels, which will perhaps 
confirm the discovery of the true author of 
the Iliad and of the Odyssey. Who knows 
whether, at thy return, thou wilt not find the 
production due to the noble independence of 
the heroic ages ?" 

In pronouncing these last words my ve- 
nerable father melted into tears, and I threw 
myself into his arms. It seemed to me that 
we bade each other a last adieu ; and in truth, 
at my return from my long travels by land 
and by sea, I found only his ashes. The day 
after this conversation, I took my departure 
for the university. The general war of Europe, 
and the revolutions which menaced the happy 



22 ULYSSES IIOMEK. 

and peaceful existence of the republic of Ve- 
nice, did not allow of my giving a fixed direc- 
tion to my studies. I therefore gave myself 
up to those which most flattered my taste — 
to the study of the ancient and modern lan- 
guages, and to reading the works of travellers 
of all nations who had visited the theatre of 
the Iliad and Odyssey. At length, after an 
abode of five years employed in preparing 
myself for the expedition, for which my fa- 
ther had given me such precise instructions, 
I commenced my route for the plain of Troy. 
The first object which struck my sight on 
arriving at the entrance of the Hellespont was 
that fine line of tombs ranged on the lofty 
coasts of the iEgean sea. Behold then, said 
I to myself, those ancient monuments pro- 
mised by Homer to the curiosity and interest 
of future generations, who were to traverse 
the Hellespont in ages to come, and in futurity 
the most remote. What an admirable picture 
for the lover of sublime poetry, and of beau- 
tiful relics of antiquity ! How happy should I 
be, if it was possible for me to impart to my 
readers the transports which I felt in ad- 



ULYSSES HOMER. c 2'.i 

vancing with religious steps towards that 
plain, the theatre of so many glorious ac- 
tions, and the place of sepulture of so many 
heroes ! 

When, in 1790, a French traveller an- 
nounced to the Royal Society of Edinburgh 
that those monuments still existed at the en- 
trance of the Hellespont, and that there was 
there to be found a vast plain watered by two 
rivers, one of which was remarkable for two 
beauteous springs of different temperature ; 
when he added, that still might be seen in 
that plain the tombs of Greek and Trojan war- 
riors, a valley which bore the name of Thim- 
breck, so like that of Thymbra which Homer 
gives to it ; when the same traveller pointed 
out in the island of Ithaca the mountains 
Neritos and Neios, the fountain of Arethusa, 
and the rock of the Crow, which is still called 
at this time Korax, as in the time of Ulysses 
and of Eumseus ; none of the schools of the 
learned in Europe believed in the existence 
of those venerable remains of antiquity. But 
when the description of them was received by 



24 ULYSSES HOMES. 

the Royal Society of Edinburgh , and published 
by the learned professor Ualzel, under the au- 
spices of that illustrious body, the travellers 
of England and of all the nations of Europe 
visited those classic countries, and confirmed 
the discoveries of the Frenchman. From that 
time the sources of the Scamander, the tombs 
of the Greek and Trojan warriors, the foun- 
tain of Arethusa were no longer regarded as 
the dreams of a heated imagination ; and no 
one at present doubts the authenticity of those 
Homeric monuments ; more especially since 
the topography of the plain of Troy and that 
of the isle of Ithaca have been ascertained 
with the highest degree of accuracy. J. B. S. 
Morritt, member of the British Parliament, in 
an excellent memoir, entitled " Vindication 
of Homer," has demonstrated with the utmost 
clearness of evidence that the two poems of 
the Iliad and the Odyssey contain historic- 
truths. 

He has observed, he says, with great plea- 
sure that there is not in the Iliad a single 
event of which we cannot fix the place upon 



ULYSSES homer; l 25 

some point of the plain near the Sigean pro- 
montory; and that from this coincidence of 
the poem with the topography, it must ne- 
cessarily be concluded, that the events are 
real and historical, or else that the poet has 
adapted them most exactly to the theatre 
which is at present seen at the outlet of the 
Hellespont. This reflection of Mr. Morritt 
is literally the same as that of Mr. David 
Morier, at this time consul-general from Eng- 
land at Paris : " The general appearance of 
the country and the relative position of the 
leading features of the land and sea prospects 
correspond so strikingly with the vivid pic- 
tures of the poet that it is hardly possible not 
to be convinced that he was himself an eye- 
ivitness of the deeds he celebrated, or that he 
adapted his fictitious pictures to a scene he 
had accurately studied with that view.'" 

William Martin Leake, an English colonel, 
as distinguished by his military talents as by 
his great erudition, justly remarks, that " not 
one of the ancient authors who have written 
on the Troas, with the exception of Homer, 



£(') ULYSSES HOMER. 

was so well acquainted with the locality as 
modern travellers are ; and that not one pos- 
sessed any delineation of its topography ap- 
proaching to the accuracy of that with which 
we are furnished, and not yet satisfied." * They 
did not, indeed, possess any of the resources, 
any of those means which are possessed at 
present, for comparing the poem with the 
topography of the places which it describes. 
They had neither charts nor views designed 
with exactness. They could not, therefore, 
form conjectures, nor draw the conclusions 
which have since successively enlightened the 
researches of the moderns. 

Is it not in fact very singular, that Strabo, 
(1. viii. p. 378.) who had travelled to Corinth, 
that is to say, within some miles of Mycenae, 
was ignorant of the existence of the immense 
ruins of that town, and asserted that there did 
not remain a vestige of it ? In like manner, 
he makes no mention of several other towns, 
of which modern travellers have found con- 

* Journal of a Tour in Asia Minor, p. 277- 






ULYSSES HOMER. 27 

siderable ruins. Diodorus Siculus also re- 
presents to us Mycenae as entirely destroyed. 
Livy too annihilates many towns of Italy, 
of which we still find the walls, the gates, and 
the towers in an almost perfect state of pre- 
servation. 

" As even the identity," adds the colonel, 
" of the country on the Asiatic side of the 
entrance of the Hellespont ne strait with the 
scene of the Ilias has been doubted, it may 
not be useless to premise, that if the war of 
Troy was a real event, having reference to a 
real topography, (and to doubt it would shake 
the whole fabric of profane history,) no dis- 
trict has yet been shown that will combine 
even a few of the requisite features of the 
plain of Troy, except that between Hum-kale* 
and Bunarbashi ; whereas in that district, 
and in the surrounding country by land and 
by water, we find the seas and mountains 
and islands in the positions which the poet 
indicates, and many of them with the same 
or nearly the same names. The features which 
do not accord so well with his description are 



28 ULYSSES HOMER. 

those which are the most liable to change in 
the lapse of ages, the course and size of the 
rivers, and the extent and direction of the 
low coast, where these waters join the sea. 
Instead of a river with two large branches, 
which Homer seems to describe, we find on 
one side of the plain a broad torrent, reduced 
in the dry season to a slender brook and a few 
stagnant pools, and on the other side a small 
perennial stream, which, instead of joining 
the former, is diverted into an artificial chan- 
nel, and is thus carried to a different part of 
the coast. But the diminutive size of some 
of the most celebrated rivers of antiquity is 
well known to those who have travelled in 
Greece; and it must be considered, that a poet 
writing of a real scene is obliged to magnify 
those features which, without exaggeration, 
would be beneath the dignity of his verse. 
In regard to the course of the streams, it 
seems sufficient still to find, at the end of 
three thousand years, two rivers which, if 
they do not now unite, evidently did so at a 
former period of time ; and for the sources of 
that stream which Homer describes as rising 



ULYSSES HOMER. ^[) 

under the walls of Troy, to find some very 
remarkable springs, not very different in their 
peculiarities from the poet's description, and 
rising at the foot of a commanding height on 
the edge of the plain. 

" For poetry this coincidence appears suf- 
ficient ; and in regard to the position of Troy 
itself, it seems enough to find a hill rising 
above the sources just mentioned, not only 
agreeing in all particulars with the kind of 
position which the Greeks * usually chose for 
their towns, but the only situation in this 
region which will combine all the requisites 
they sought for; namely, a height overlooking 
a fertile maritime plain, situated at a sufficient 
distance from the sea to be secure from the 



* " It is almost unnecessary here to remark that the 
ruling family, and hence probably a large portion of the 
people of Troy, were of Greek origin, and that they had 
adopted the manners and language of Greece. The 
Dardanidee were Greeks settled in Asia; as the Atridae 
were Phrygians settled in Europe. For the history of 
Ilium the reader may conveniently consult the work of 
Chandler, in 4to, 1802." 



Si) ULYSSES IIOMKll. 

attacks of pirates, and furnished with a copious 
and perennial supply of water ; presenting a 
strong and healthy position for the city; and 
for the citadel a hill beyond the reach of bow- 
shot from the neighbouring heights, defended 
at the back by steep rocks and precipices, sur- 
rounded by a deep valley and broad torrent, 
and backed beyond the river by mountains 
which supplied timber and fuel. That it was 
precisely such a situation as the inhabitants 
of Greece and Asia in remote ages preferred, 
might be shown by a great variety of ex- 
amples ; and it can hardly be doubted, that a 
person totally unacquainted with the Ilias, but 
accustomed to observe the positions of ancient 
Greek towns, would fix on Bunarbashi for 
the site of the chief place of the surrounding 
country. 

" It is a necessary consequence of placing 
Troy on the heights to the S. E. of Bunar- 
bashi, that the river flowing from the sources 
which give that village its name (meaning 
spring-head) is the Scamander of Homer; 
that the large torrent which flows through a 



ULYSSES HOMER. Hi 

deep ravine on the eastern side of the heights 
is theSimoeis; and that, notwithstanding the 
much greater magnitude of the bed of the 
latter, and occasionally of that stream itself, 
the united river after the junction in the 
plain was called by the name of the former, 
Scamander. 

" With regard to the existing barrows, it 
seems incontrovertible only that those which 
stand in conspicuous situations on either side 
of the mouth of the Scamander are the tumuli 
supposed in the time of the Romans, and 
probably with reason, to have been the se- 
pulchres of Ajax, Achilles, and some other 
chieftains; and these monuments are so far 
important as they prove the identity of the 
plain of the Mendere with the scene of the 
Ilias. 

" It is objected to the springs of Bunar- 
bashi, that instead of being only two — one 
hot and the other cold, as described by Homer 
— they are in one place so numerous as to have 
received from the Turks the name of Kirk- 



32 ULYSSES HOMER. 

Ghiuz, (the Forty Fountains,) and that they 
are all of the same temperature. 

" But viewing them as the springs of a 
river, they may in poetical language, or even 
in common speech, be considered as two, since 
they arise in two places, distant from each 
other about two hundred yards : in one the 
water appears in a deep basin, which is noted 
among the natives for being often covered 
with a thick vapor like smoke ; in the other 
place there are numerous rills issuing from 
the rocks into a broad shallow piece of water, 
terminating in a stream Avhich is joined by 
that from the smoking spring. As to the 
temperature of the water, the observations of 
travellers give various results. Some have 
observed a difference : according to others, 
it would appear that, being all deep-seated 
springs, their temperature is the same at all 
seasons, or about 60° of Fahrenheit at their 
eruption from the ground; consequently that 
they will feel cold when the air is at 70° or 
80°, and warm when it is at 40" or 50\ It 
seems sufficient to justify Homer's expression, 



ULYSSES IIOMEK. .'J. c i 

that a difference of temperature was believed, 
and that an occasional appearance of vapor 
over one source was often observed by the 
natives." pp. 277—283. 

In the number of the important witnesses 
that have been cited, I must not forget the 
celebrated Wood, who appeared fifty years ago 
in the plain of Troy, after having braved the 
deserts of Palmyra, in order to render us ac- 
quainted with their monuments. He observes, 
that if any one were to take the pains of ex- 
tracting from the Iliad the simple journal of 
the siege of Troy, divested of all the orna- 
ments of poetry, that journal would be found 
in general to contain an exact recital of mi- 
litary events supported by the most perfect 
coincidence of time, circumstance, and place 
which history requires ; so that Homer is not 
only the most inimitable of poets, but is also 
the most faithful copyist of nature. Struck 
with this observation of Wood, I not only, in 
conformity with his wise counsel, extracted 
from the Iliad the simple journal of the siege 
of Troy, but as I luckily had the Iliad in my 

D 



34 ULYSSES HOMER. 

hand, and the theatre of the battles before 
my eyes, I went and seated myself sometimes 
by the side of Mars on the Pergama and the 
beauteous hill (KaMtcoXw vrj), sometimes near 
Minerva on the intrenchment of Hercules at 
the Sigean promontory. Placed alternately 
on those two situations, so well chosen by the 
two divinities, I followed the armed gods in 
all their movements, and each of the heroes 
in his own particular exploits. 

The war between the Greeks and the Tro- 
jans had lasted nine years. The first were 
encamped in the neighbourhood of Troy when 
the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon 
occasioned a division in the army. Up to that 
time the Trojans had remained in the town, 
according to the advice of the aged counsel- 
lors, who foresaw the difficulties which the 
Greeks would have to overcome in forming 
the siege. But encouraged by the defection 
of Achilles, with which they had become ac- 
quainted, they at last marched out of their 
walls, and advanced to encounter the enemy. 
This sortie of the Trojans ought to satisfy the 



ULYSSES HOMER. '.i~> 

vengeance of Achilles, and flatter his pride, 
as it was an act of homage paid to his valor. 
The two armies engage, and have successively 
four grand battles, which form altogether the 
principal subject of the Iliad. 

In the first of those combats the Greeks 
occupied the plain of the Scamander: the 
Trojans the hill Bathycia. Paris and Me- 
nelaus are not long in discovering each other. 
Hector provokes a single combat between 
them, of which the issue is not decisive. 
The two armies could not then be at a great 
distance from the town, as Priam, accom- 
panied by the old men, distinguishes^ from 
the top of the walls the chiefs of the Greeks, 
of whom Helen recounts to him the names. 
The traitor Pandarus discharges an arrow: the 
two armies again engage: the battle took 
place in the neighbourhood of the town, as 
Apollo animated the Trojans by his shouts 
from the top of the Pergama. The fate of 
the battle rests for a long time undecided: 
the armies advance and retreat alternately 
between the rivers Simois and Scamander. 

d 2 



:3() ULYSSES HOMEItJ 

At length Ajax drives back the Trojans to 
the gates of the town : there they rally at the 
voice of Hector and iEneas, and turn round 
upon the enemy. Hector, excited by Helenus, 
and no doubt alarmed at the approaching 
danger, has recourse to the gods. He enters 
the town, and engages the women to implore 
the protection of Minerva. During that time 
Glaucus and Diomed exchange their armour. 
At the return of Hector the battle recom- 
mences. Hector challenges the most valiant 
of the Greeks. At length the Trojans retire 
into their town, and the Greeks into their 
camp. Thus ends the first day's battle. 

The day after, an armistice is agreed upon 
in order to burn the dead ; and the Greeks 
avail themselves of it to throw up a rampart 
before their camp. On the point of the day 
following the second battle takes place, which 
is soon followed by another between the town 
and the camp. Towards the middle of the 
day a panic terror seizes the Greeks : they re- 
tire in disorder : they return, however, once 
more to the charge, but are repelled, and at 



ULYSSES HOMER. 37 

last shut themselves up in their intrench- 
ments. Night comes on happily to save 
them. 

Hector does not allow his troops to enter 
into the town ; but lets them pass the night 
in the plain upon the banks of the river, at 
some distance from the camp, and commands 
them to light fires. The Greeks, in com- 
pliance with the advice of Nestor, keep watch 
also on their part during the same night. 
They send ambassadors to Achilles. Ulysses 
and Diomed are sent to reconnoitre. The 
situation of the camp of the Trojans is on this 
occasion described with precision. Hector, 
with the chiefs of the Trojans, holds a council 
at the tomb of Ilus. The auxiliaries sleep ; 
but the Trojans keep watch near the fires 
which they had lighted. The Lycians and 
the Mysians are towards the valley of Thym- 
bra ; that is, without doubt, on the right wing, 
and opposite the post of Ajax. The Carians 
and the Paeonians are towards the sea, on the 
left wing, and opposite to the post of Achilles. 
The Thracians, under the command of Rhe- 



38 ULYSSES HOMER. 

sus, must have been at the advanced posts, 
and near the camp of the Greeks ; for Ulysses 
and Diomed, by following the banks of the 
Simois, surprised the former, and returned at 
the break of day to their camp, from whence 
they had departed some time after mid- 
night. 

The day following, the Trojans attacked 
the camp of the Greeks. In order to com- 
prehend perfectly the different actions which 
took place in the course of that day, it is ne- 
cessary to understand the disposition of the 
ships, and the fortification which the Greeks 
had newly constructed. 

The vessels were ranged in two lines be- 
tween the promontories, with their sterns 
turned towards the land. Ajax was on the 
left wing of the camp, and Achilles, with his 
Myrmidons, on the right. There can be no 
doubt respecting the disposition of the troops 
placed on the two promontories ; but it is 
not easy to determine with equal exactness 
the disposition of those who occupied the in- 



ULYSSES HOMER. .'j<) 

termediate space. It is, however, probable 
that Idomeneus with the Cretans was on the 
right of Ajax, and that Nestor with the Py- 
lians was next to the latter. Then Mnestheus 
with the Athenians ; next Ulysses with the 
Argives; and, lastly, Achilles with the Myrmi- 
dons and other Thessalians. 

This order of battle throws great light upon 
many incidents of the poem. When Machaon 
is wounded, and orders himself to be con- 
ducted to the tent of Nestor, Achilles is at 
such a distance that he cannot distinguish 
him. Patroclus, sent by Achilles in order to 
obtain information, and returning from the 
post of Nestor, passes near the ships of Ulysses. 
He finds Eurypylus wounded, who was re- 
turning, without doubt, to the right wing, 
where were placed the Thessalians. Machaon, 
though a Thessalian, was conducted into the 
tent of Nestor by Nestor himself, because he 
was too weak to reach the right wing. The 
vessels of Ulysses were in the centre ; and 
when he called his troops to arms, his voice 
was heard at the two extremities of the camp. 



40 ULYSSES HOMER. 

The order of the vessels in the catalogue 
appears to have reference to the disposition 
of the troops in the camp. The Boeotians, 
in fact, and those who are next to them, 
up to the Salaminians commanded by Ajax, 
belonged to the left wing. The Argives, and 
those who were next to them, the Cretans, 
Rhodians, and other islanders, composed the 
centre. The Thessalians, with the Myrmidons, 
formed the right wing. 

The order of battle is a little different. 
Agamemnon throws himself into the midst 
of the combatants, and, after having passed 
some troops that are not named, reaches Ido- 
meneus, who commanded the Cretans. Then 
Ajax, under whom the Salaminians fought ; 
next Nestor, Mnestheus, Ulysses, and, lastly, 
Diomed. 

Ulysses was so far separated from the part 
of the camp attacked by the Trojans that he 
was not aware of their approach. 

The camp of the Greeks then occupied, as 






ULYSSES HOMER. 41 

we have just seen, all the space comprised be- 
tween the two promontories. As they .had 
not succeeded in the former battle, Nestor, 
alarmed at the valor of Hector, and con- 
templating also the void which the secession 
of Achilles had left in the army, proposes to 
fortify the camp. This precaution had been 
hitherto unnecessary, as the Trojans had been 
always kept shut up within their walls. 

By the little time that was employed in 
constructing this intrenchment, it may be 
judged that the work was of no great im- 
portance ; but as it is the most ancient model 
of a fortification known, it merits on that ac- 
count some attention. It was constructed of 
earth, pierced with several ports, and flanked 
with towers built of stone and wood. It must 
have been at a distance from the ships, inas- 
much as a very sanguinary engagement took 
place in the part which separated them. The 
principal gate, through which the Greeks made 
a sortie into the plain, was on the left wing. 

This intrenchment was of little elevation, 



i 



42 ULYSSES HOMER. 

inasmuch as Sarpedon reached the battlements 
of it with his hand. It was defended along 
its whole extent by a deep ditch fenced with 
palisades, which was immediately contiguous 
to it. 

Now let us return to the assault on the 
camp. At the break of day the Greeks sallied 
out of it, and left their chariots behind them : 
the Trojan were upon the Thrasimos. The 
fate of battle remains undecided to the middle 
of the day; at which time the Trojans are 
repelled, and fly across the plain, passing near 
the tomb of Ilus and the fig-tree, and do not 
stop till they reach the Scaean gates. There 
the combat is renewed, and continues the 
whole day. Agamemnon distinguishes him- 
self by many brilliant actions. At length he 
is wounded : the Trojans then resume their 
courage, and drive back the Greeks beyond 
the tomb of Ilus, where Paris, in ambuscade, 
wounds Diomed with an arrow. The battle 
becomes general, and reaches to great distance 
upon the plain ; inasmuch as Hector, com- 
bating on the left wing, towards the Sea- 



ULYSSES HOMER. 43 

mander, knew nothing of the success which 
Dioined, Ulysses, and Ajax were obtaining 
over the Trojans towards the Simois. He 
flies to the assistance of his countrymen, and 
Ajax himself is forced to give way. The 
Greeks fly towards their camp, and there shut 
themselves up. Hector pursues them, pre- 
pares to attack them, to set fire to their ves- 
sels, and to destroy the whole Greek army. 

The Trojans were ignorant of the method 
of conducting an attack on an intrenched 
camp ; but, on the advice of Polydamas, their 
chiefs descend from their chariots, divide the 
infantry into five columns, and lead it on to- 
wards the intrenchment. Asius alone remains 
in his chariot ; and, casting his eyes towards 
the left of the ships, he observes that the pass 
by which the Greeks had sallied from their 
camp was open. He there makes an attack, 
but without success. The other divisions 
attack other points ; and as the columns of 
the Trojans were five in number, it is gene- 
rally supposed that the ports of the intrench- 



4A ULYSSES HOMER. 

nient were the same. The division of Hector 
is particularly directed to destroy the rampart 
about one of the ports. Sarpedon directs his 
attacks upon the parts defended by Mne- 
stheus, the chief of the Athenians. He calls 
to his assistance Ajax and Teucer, who were 
fighting against Hector. The absence of 
these two adversaries offered to the son of 
Hercules an opportunity of bursting open the 
gate with a fragment of a rock, and of pene- 
trating into the camp. The Greeks, terrified, 
retire into their vessels. Here the two Ajaxes 
unite : they rally the fugitives, and bring them 
back to the combat. This column of the 
Greeks gives the first idea of a phalanx ; for 
the bravest troops began to close in their 
ranks on the approach of the enemy. By 
means of this manoeuvre the Trojans are 
quickly repelled. 

While the combat is at its height among 
the vessels, Idomeneus, accompanied by Me- 
riones, passes to the left wing, and makes head 
against the troops of Asius. 



ULYSSES HOMER. 45 

The Trojans meanwhile assemble from all 
parts at the place where Hector was combat- 
ing. This warrior, following the advice of 
Polydamas, assembles a council. He quits it 
in order to seek the bravest chiefs with their 
battalions, and advances with them against 
Ajax. 

Hector thought that he had attained the 
object of his wishes, when the Greek generals, 
after having dressed their wounds, returned 
to the combat. Hector himself is wounded, 
and the Trojans are driven beyond the in- 
trenchment. He rallies them, attacks the 
foss once more, passes it, and renews the com- 
bat between the vessels and the tents. The 
Greeks, overpowered, seek an asylum behind 
the first rank of the vessels, and beat off the 
Trojans with the oars. Ajax advances gal- 
lantly against Hector, who at length seizes 
the poop of the vessel which had borne Pro- 
tesilaus, and sets fire to it. 

But here the success of the Trojans ends. 
Patroclus advances at the head of the Myr- 



46 ULYSSES HOMERl 

midons divided into five close columns. The 
Trojans are soon forced to retire : confusion 
shows itself in their ranks : they betake them- 
selves to flight. Patroclus cuts through their 
army, and causes great carnage between the 
vessels, the river, and the town. Intoxicated 
with his victory, and forgetting the orders of 
Achilles, he pursues the fugitives to the walls 
of Troy, and even tries to carry the town by 
assault. Hector halts at the Scaean gates, 
attacks the Greeks in his turn, slays Patro- 
clus, and pursues the fugitives to their camp. 
They nevertheless carry off the body of Pa- 
troclus. Achilles presents himself without 
arms to the Trojans. The bare sight of this 
warrior arrests their course. They pass the 
night in the plain before the camp. Polyda- 
mas counsels them to retire within the town. 
Hector opposes him. At the break of day, 
Achilles, clad in his new armour, comes out 
of the camp. Here begins the fourth and 
last battle. 

At first the two armies display an equal 
valor ; but at length the Trojans give way, 



ULYSSES HOMER. 17 

and fly towards the Scamander. Achilles 
pursues, and divides them into two parts. 
The one is fortunate enough to save itself in 
the town : the other is forced into the river. 
Achilles then approaches the town into which 
the Trojans had already entered. Hector 
alone remains before the walls, and falls by 
the hand of Achilles near the sources of the 
Scamander. 

Here I stop to invoke the testimony of 
all the generals who have fought during 
the last thirty years upon the grand theatre 
of Europe, and I ask of them confidently, 
whether it be possible that the historian of 
the Trojan war, " Trojani belli scriptor," 
could have made so perfect an agreement, so 
constant a harmony, between the localities of 
the plain of Troy and the numerous combats 
which there took place, without having been 
an actor and a witness of them. 

A dexterous painter designs every day scenes 
of imagination with as much facility as ele- 
gance. Voltaire describes the battles of Fori- 



48 ULYSSES HOMER. 

tenoy, and those of Charles XII. ; but is there 
a single officer, Frenchman or Swede, who 
can comprehend those battles in the descrip- 
tion which Voltaire has given of them ? There 
is never anything but obscurity, or at least a 
description difficult to make out, in the battles 
which are given by historians who are not of 
the profession. In whatever relates to the 
tactics and the topography, we can only 
trust to those who have been present at, 
and have seen with their own eyes, or par- 
ticipated in the scenes which they describe. 
It is in Thucydides, Polybius, Xenophon, 
Caesar, Arrian, Josephus ; and, among the 
modern generals, in the Cond^s, the Tu- 
rennes, the Fredericks, the Napoleons, the 
Foys, the Segurs, the Wellingtons, the Rey- 
niers, &c. that are developed, with order, 
truth, and simplicity, the recitals of the 
great operations of war, offensive and defen- 
sive, the military reconnoitres, the art of in- 
trenchment, ambuscades, attacks, mines, and 
sieges. This kind of knowledge is not to be 
found in Voltaire, nor in Tasso, nor in Virgil 
himself. The description of Virgil is more 



ULYSSES HOMER. 49 

ornamental without doubt, but that of Homer 
is more martial ; and though more detailed, 
has more warmth and truth. The picture 
which Tasso has drawn of the armies that 
dispute the Holy Land is intermixed with 
agreeable and interesting episodes ; but Tasso 
is far from approaching his model. He only 
presents the descriptions of the countries of 
which he speaks : he does not paint his war- 
riors with traits equally strong. We may 
perceive, says Pope, in the poems of Homer, 
that he has seen the places which he men- 
tions. In fact he executes his numerous pic- 
tures with a topographic fidelity, a freedom, 
a boldness, and liberty of pencil which evi- 
dently only belong to the warrior-poet, at 
once the historian and the witness of the 
scenes which he describes — the poet-king who, 
like Moses, was equally competent in the art 
of governing an empire and in that of com- 
manding armies. 

Thus those commentators who have up to 
the present time believed that this poet had 
written his own adventures and the wars in 

E 



50 ULYSSES HOMER. 

which he had fought have been carried along 
by the force of truth. Those on the contrary 
who have maintained that Homer did not 
exist till many ages after the taking of Troy, 
being equally forced to allow that he could 
not put so much truth into his pictures with- 
out having seen the places which he describes, 
are necessarily obliged to suppose that the au- 
thor of the Iliad, whosoever he may have been, 
Homer, Ulysses, or any one else, has gone 
many ages after the war, and placed himself, 
for example, upon the Sigean promontory, or 
upon the Pergama, in order there to meditate 
the plan of his poem ; to adapt its episodes to 
the rivers, valleys, and promontories of that 
celebrated plain ; to support indeed through 
twelve books the recitals of all the combats, 
general and partial, which have there taken 
place, without deviating in a single instance 
from the topographic reality of the spot which 
has been the theatre of them. Nor is this 
all. It must further be admitted that the 
same poet has also taken up his abode in the 
island of Ithaca, and has there also happily 
placed himself upon the top of the Rock of the 






ULYSSES HOMER. 51 

Crow, in order to paint to ns with the same 
exactness all that passed in Ithaca from 
the arrival of Ulysses at the Grotto of the 
Nymphs to his last combat with the usurpers 
of his throne : 

" credat Judseus Apella." 



It is therefore indubitably and rigorously 
demonstrable that the author of the Iliad, who- 
ever he may have been, has fought on the 
plain of Troy. Some authors of antiquity 
have pretended that the son of Palamedes, the 
king of Euboea, had composed certain poems 
upon this war : but as the name of that hero 
is not even mentioned in the Iliad, the opinion 
of antiquity respecting that prince can only 
serve to prove that the kings of the heroic 
ages, like the Hebrew patriarchs, knew both 
how to fight and to sing their battles. 

It now only remains to examine upon which 
of the heroes mentioned in the poem we ought 
to cast our eyes, and to whom we are to ascribe 
a distinction the most honorable that any 

e 2 



52 ULYSSES HOMER. 

mortal has ever merited. If among those 
heroes there was one who was found to be the 
most devoted lover of his country and of his 
king, the most faithful husband, the most 
tender father, the most dutiful son ; if that 
hero had travelled among all nations known 
in his time, in order to become acquainted 
with their manners and their cities ; if by his 
address, his courage, his wisdom, and his elo- 
quence he had constantly directed the army 
of Agamemnon in the paths of victory, and 
had rendered it master of Troy ; if he had 
obtained throughout the preference over the 
other heroes ; if he had constantly supported 
the character of the pious hero of the Iliad as 
of the Odyssey, might he not confidently be 
declared the author of the first of those poems, 
more especially after it had been shown that 
no one but he could be the author of the 
second ? 

I think that I have sufficiently proved that 
Ulysses is the author of the Odyssey and of the 
Iliad : but let us now see whether he must not 
necessarily have been the author of a portion 



ULYSSES HOMER. 53 

of the Iliad, which of itself alone is perhaps 
more surprising than the whole poem. Let 
us examine whether he has not permitted us to 
discover with sufficient clearness that himself, 
in concert with Nestor, was the author of the 
admirable enumeration of the Greek and Tro- 
jan nations, of that chief work, which is totally 
inexplicable, if it is not the act of a powerful 
king who unites in himself alone all the know- 
ledge of his age, in geography, in agriculture, 
in history, in politics, and in eloquence. This 
third proof would support the other two ; and 
no resources are to be neglected in the at- 
tempt to establish a system so new, and to 
triumph over an uncertainty protected by so 
many ages. 

I open the eleventh book of the Iliad, and 
I there remark the following passage : " When 
Ulysses and I were sent," says Nestor, " to 
assemble the heroes of all Greece" &c. (II. A. 
769-) The commentators, ancient or mo- 
dern, at least so far as I know, have not at- 
tached to this beautiful passage the value and 
importance of which it is worthy, since it com- 



.54 ULYSSES HOMES. 

prises a brief and clear explanation of the list. 
Madame Dacier is the only person who has 
made a remark upon this subject, full of good 
sense and reason; but, unhappily, she has 
not sounded it to the bottom. " Nestor and 
Ulysses," she says, " were chosen to go into 
all the states of Greece and exhort the princes 
to join in the expedition against Troy. There 
was much wisdom in the choice ; for as they 
were the two men most celebrated in Greece 
for their prudence, they were perhaps the only 
persons capable of engaging in so difficult a 
war." Yes, no doubt, these were the only per- 
sons capable of assembling the heroes of their 
country in order to be led against the enemy ; 
to traverse all Greece at a period when, as 
Suidas says, travelling was so dear. But 
they had not only to arm the continent of 
Greece, but also to put in motion the sove- 
reigns of the iEgean Sea ; all the Greeks, in 
fact, who were to combat against the Trojans. 

If the great age of Nestor forced him to 
limit his services to the continent of Greece, 
it is probable that Ulysses, the indefatigable 



ULYSSES HOMER. 55 

Ulysses, accompanied by another young and 
active prince, finished the recruiting of the 
iEgean Sea. It appears at least that he was 
no stranger to the expeditions which took 
place in that sea; since, according to the ge- 
neral opinion of antiquity, it was he who was 
employed to search for Neoptolemus in the 
island of Scyros ; to bring in Philoctetes from 
Lemnos to the army : and it was certainly 
more difficult to tear the son of Achilles from 
the arms of his mother, and to reconcile the 
son of Pceas with the Atridae, than to engage 
the kings of Crete and of Rhodes, Idomeneus 
and Tlepolemus, to follow the standard of 
Agamemnon. 

In this double conscription of the continent 
and of the islands of Greece Ulysses must have 
acquired at great expense and by immense 
fatigue a perfect knowledge of those regions. 
That happy genius might also during his em- 
bassies to Troy, and during the ten years in 
which he made war upon the Trojans, have 
become acquainted with the kingdom of Priam 
and the states of his numerous allies, the 



56 i LYSSES HOMER. 

Mysians, the Phrygians, the Carians, the 
Maeonians, the Paphlagonians, the Chaly- 
beans, and the Halizonians. 

It has been remarked with great truth that 
the author of the Iliad has given a much less 
complete and much less detailed description 
of the kingdom of Priam than of the king- 
doms of Greece. This difference is in truth 
worthy of remark ; for it proves at the same 
time, in a manner the most incontestable, that 
that great man was not a native of Asia, as 
has been generally imagined by the ancients 
and the moderns ; for he would certainly know 
his own country better than that of Greece ; 
and besides, he would not have proclaimed in 
his poems a preference so decided for the ene- 
mies of Asia, and sentiments so hostile to the 
Trojans, who would in that case have been 
his neighbours and his countrymen. 

I have shown above that Ulysses has pre- 
sented in his Odyssey the most exact picture 
of the island of Ithaca. I have just now 
proved that he has been an eye-witness of the 



ULYSSES HOMER. 57 

battles of the Iliad. It now remains for me to 
verify the exactitude which he has shown in 
painting all the regions of the catalogue of 
this immortal work — I repeat it, altogether 
inexplicable, if it were not the work of an 
illustrious ambassador accredited by the king 
of kings to all the sovereigns of Greece. 

I quitted then the plain of Ilium to go 
and study first the kingdom of Priam, from 
Paphlagonia to Lycia. I visited Egypt, and 
Thebes with its hundred gates, of which the 
ruins are still standing. I then traversed all 
the continent of Greece, all the islands of the 
iEgean Sea, and all those of the seas of Sicily 
and Italy. I saw the city of Erechtheus, cele- 
brated for the temple of Minerva; Argolis, 
abounding in fine horses ; Achaia, renowned 
for the beauty of its women ; the spacious 
plains of Mycalessus ; the arid rocks of Pytho ; 
Thisbe, which is still the chosen abode of 
doves, &c. &c. &c. I visited, in a word, all 
the treasures of Greece, the most distinguished 
country in the world, for beautiful scenery, 
for historic recollections and works of art. 



58 ILYssks HOMES. 

Two celebrated English travellers, Mr. Ed- 
ward Dodwell and Sir William Gell, had per- 
formed before me the general tour of Greece, 
and had made drawings of all its chief monu- 
ments. It is to them that I am indebted for 
the small number which I have already had ex- 
ecuted for the illustration of a larger work on 
this subject, in order to prove at least by some 
examples that the author of the catalogue had 
described the monuments and the scenery with 
as much exactness and truth as the island of 
Ithaca and the plain of Troy. The first of 
those engravings presents us with the temple 
of Minerva Sunias, on the sacred promontory 
of Attica. This picture is followed by those 
of iEgina* and Troezen ; of the course of the 
Peneus ; of the fountain of Hesperia ; of the 
lake of Stymphalus ; of the Cyclopean ruins 
of Tiryns ; of the magnificent gate of the 
citadel of Mycenae, out of which passed the 
king of kings with the numerous battalions 
which he conducted to the siege of Troy ; 
and, last of all, the passage of Alpheus, where 

* The present seat of the new government of Greece. 



ULYSSES HOMER. 59 

Nestor in his early youth gave such striking 
proofs of his valor. Arrived on the banks, 
and near the mouth of the Alpheus, I was so 
near to the capital of the king of Pylos, and 
to the port where Telemachus embarked on 
his return from Sparta to Ithaca ; I was be- 
sides so worn out with the fatigues which I 
had experienced in my long travels, that I was 
strongly tempted to follow the son of Ulysses 
along the shores ofElis from the embouchure 
of the Peneus, and to return, like him, into 
my native country. Would to God that I had 
persisted in this resolution! I should then have 
found my father alive after my long absence. 
But I was still once more excited by my de- 
sire of following my hero across the seas of 
Sicily and Italy. I therefore embarked in the 
port of Navarino, (Pylos,) which was soon to 
become the theatre of a great event, happy 
for certain nations, untoward for others, ac- 
cording to different interests, or perhaps accord- 
ing to political measures wisely concerted. 

A violent north wind had cast Ulysses upon 
the coast of Africa at the moment when he 



(JO ULYSSES HOMER. 

wished to double the Malean promontory, in 
order to sail up to Ithaca. This north wind, 
fatal to the course of Ulysses, was on the con- 
trary most favorable to mine ; and in a few 
days I arrived at the extremity of the Syrtes, 
where is situated the island of the Lotophagi, 
(Meninx,) now called Gerby, and where still 
grows the lotus. I landed on that island ; 
and I there in fact found the fruit-plant with 
the flower of which the odor was as agreeable 
as the taste was for the sailors of Ulysses the 
most dangerous of all poisons ; for it extin- 
guished in their hearts the remembrance of 
their country. From the island of the Loto- 
phagi I passed to that of iEgusa, which the 
poet seems to have described with as much 
satisfaction as his dear Ithaca ; for we there 
see the banks crowned with meadows well- 
watered, always covered with fresh grass and 
numerous flocks of goats, a port vast and 
commodious, and that beauteous spring of 
limpid water sung by the author of the 
Odyssey. From the island of ^Egusa I passed 
into that of the Cyclops, which, as Ulysses 
says, was very near. Polyphemus, of whom 



ULYSSES IIOIMKU. ()1 

he draws so hideous a picture, was not any 
more than Ulysses himself a fabulous cha- 
racter. He was without doubt a king of the 
country, deficient in the duties of hospitality. 
It has been pretended that this king had a 
daughter of rare beauty, whom Ulysses car- 
ried off, and that the inhabitants pursued the 
daughter of their king, and rescued her from 
the hands of the ravisher : but how can we 
attribute such conduct to the virtuous hero 
who preferred his Penelope to immortality? 

After having surveyed the island of the 
Cyclops, and visited the immense crater 
which sometimes shakes Sicily and Italy, but 
which without doubt was silent in the time 
of Ulysses, inasmuch as he has not even pro- 
nounced its name in his narrative to the 
Phaeacians, I repaired to the island of iEolus, 
where the heroic navigator, protected by the 
god of the winds, becomes himself the master 
of the winds. Here the allegory is intelligible ; 
and we may see in it the poetical expression 
of a natural fact. From the island of iEolus 
I passed into that of Circe, at this day Monte 



62 DLYSSES HOMER. 

Circello. I recognised, with all the other na- 
turalists who have travelled in these parts, an 
immense quantity of poisonous plants, the 
deadly nightshade, the datura ferox, the ra- 
nunculus sceleratus, and their antidote the 
moly, which Mercury makes known to Ulysses 
to secure him against the spells of Circe. 
Close to the island of Circe I perceived the 
capital of the Lsestrygons, those anthropo- 
phagi from whence Ulysses only escaped by 
abandoning to them twelve of his vessels. It 
is the hero himself who teaches me the real 
position of the island of the Syrens, which 
was unknown in the time of Strabo, and upon 
which modern geographers had no more cer- 
tain notions than he. Yet the name only, 
the island of bones, (Ustica,) ought to have 
pointed out to them the horrible abode of 
those goddesses, strewed with the dreadful 
relics of their victims. 

But where I have most admired the genius 
of the poet, and the fidelity of his pencil, is 
in his description of the dismal regions of the 
Cimmerians, and in his surprising picture of 



ULYSSES HOMER. 63 

Charybdis and Scylla. Thus the poet has 
shown himself as faithful a painter of nature 
in the seas of Sicily and Italy as in the iEgean, 
in the continent of Greece, in the plain of 
Ilium, and in the island of Ithaca. Ogygia 
alone is involved in mystery, which has 
hitherto • evaded all the researches of geo- 
graphers. Did Ulysses wish to cast a veil 
over the theatre of his amours with Calypso ? 
This conjecture would agree with his resist- 
ance to the charms of the goddess, and his 
impatience to see once more the smoke of his 
palace. 

It is at the strait of Charybdis and Scylla 
that I end my observations on the seas of 
Sicily and Italy. Arrived at Rhegio, I had 
only a step to take to reach the interesting- 
ruins of Temese in the country of the Bruttii. 
I repaired thither that I might not leave a 
single one of the chief geographical points 
mentioned in the two poems without verifying 
its existence and position. 

Minerva, in the first book of the Odyssey, 



6'4 ULYSSES HOMER. 

approaches Telemachus and says to him : " I 
am Mentes, king of the Taphians, whose 
principal occupation is on the sea. I am 
going to Temese * to fetch copper in exchange 
for iron." The ruins of that celebrated town 
and the scoria of its mines have been observed 
upon before me, and have been described by 
Swinburne, at the place named Campo Te- 
mese, some miles above Amantea. It appears 
that the commerce of the Taphians with Te- 
mese did not take place through the strait, 
but that the merchandise was deposited on 
the eastern coast of Italy, and transported by 
land to Temese upon the western shore. 

After quitting Temese, nothing remarkable 
occurred till I discerned the lofty mountains 
of Albania, and a favorable wind brought 

* The learned Boehart conjectures that the Phoeni- 
cians had given the name to that town, as well as to 
another situated in the island of Cyprus, on account of 
the minerals which ahound in their territory ; for Te- 
mese in their language signifies fusion, and it is known 
that the Phoenicians were much engaged in the casting 
of metals. 






ULYSSES HOMER. 65 

me in less than twenty hours within the port 
of Corfu. 

At the time of my voyage from Ithaca to 
the university of Padua I had had occasion 
to observe how exact the author of the 
Odyssey is in his description of the ca- 
pital and gardens of the king of Corcyra. 
I had above all admired the circuit of the 
ancient port, surrounded with hills covered 
with olive-trees, fig-trees, and orange-trees, 
thrusting their branches into the waters of 
the sea. At the village of Chrysida I had 
remarked the abundant fountain of limpid 
water which, springing at present from the 
foot of a beautiful tree, turns a mill at the 
distance of a few paces. In this second voyage 
I made an observation which had escaped 
me in the first, that the pictures of the poet 
are more numerous, richer, and, if it be pos- 
sible, of an exactness still more striking, in 
proportion as they approach nearer to the two 
principal theatres of the Odyssey and the 
Iliad. In fact, when I contemplated that 
beauteous fountain of Chrysida, which was 

F 



66 



ULYSSES IIOMEll. 



heretofore divided into two channels, one of 
which watered the magnificent gardens of 
Alcinous, * and the other formed a vast basin 
in front of the palace, for the convenience of 
the citizens, I had a difficulty in figuring to 
myself that a schoolmaster had come from the 
extremity of Ionia to paint with so much care 
the gardens of Alcinous and the beauteous 
fountain which watered them. It seemed to 
me more natural to believe that a picture so 
minute had been painted by the neighbour 
and friend of the king ; by the king of Ithaca, 
whose flocks drank at the delicious fountain 
of Arethusa, and who had fought so long at 
the beauteous springs of the Scamander. 

After having taken a general view of the 
embellishments and improvements of every 
kind, which that happy colony owes to the 
English, my first care was to pay a visit to 
the Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian 
Islands, Major-General Sir Frederick Adam, 

* These splendid gardens have received new embel- 
lishments from their illustrious possessor, the present 
Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian islands. 






ULYSSES HOMER. 6j 

and to the Earl of Guilford, the lord chancellor 
of the new University, who unfortunately had 
gone to the waters of Spa ; from whence he 
wrote to me, some days after my arrival (Aug. 
15, 1827) : " The fatigues of the journey 
and the bad roads of the Ardennes have given 
me a disorder of which the waters will not 
cure me." This mournful presentiment was 
but too well founded : the noble and generous 
friend of humanity, the zealous protector of 
the Greek nation, died three months after- 
wards in London, at the house of his sister, 
Lady Sheffield, surrounded by his relations, 
and an object of regret to all Europe. At 
the time when I learnt from England the 
death of my benefactor, I received at the same 
time from Ithaca the fatal news of the death 
of my father. These two pure souls are in 
the bosom of the Almighty, where without 
doubt they still intercede for the restoration 
of Greece and the peace of the world. 

THE END. 



LONDON : 

PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WH1TEFRIARS. 

































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